After 3-Year Hunt, Mother Reunited With 2 Youngsters

A mother and her two children were reunited briefly Tuesday in Orange for the first time since their father and grandmother allegedly took them unlawfully from Utah 3 years ago.

The meeting with her 9-year-old daughter, Jennifer Grud, and 10-year-old son, Scott Grud, “went good,” said Mary Elizabeth Beckwith, 29, of Panguitch Lake, Utah.

Beckwith said she hoped to visit with her children again today at a county children’s shelter in Orange where the youngsters have been staying since the surprise arrest of their father and grandmother early Monday.

The hourlong visit was a bittersweet Christmas present--filled with the joy of seeing her children and yet a painful reminder of how fast children grow up, the mother said.

“It was scary. I think it was more scary for them than me,” she said. “They didn’t recognize me. They said it was because I curled my hair.”

Not Babies Anymore

She laughed softly, adding, “They were babies when they left, and they sure aren’t that anymore.”

Her former husband, Scott Bradley Grud, 28, and his mother, Barbara Marie Grud, 49, are scheduled to be arraigned before a judge in Santa Ana this morning on Utah charges of interfering with child custody orders and unlawful interstate flight, both of which are felonies. One official said both Gruds have told fugitive investigators for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, which runs the County Jail, that they will fight extradition to Utah.

The children’s father was arrested about 3 a.m. Monday by police officers in the city of Orange, who pulled over his pickup truck because it resembled one seen near several trash fires on Chapman Avenue. Police learned through a computerized records check that Utah authorities had issued arrest warrants for both Scott Grud and his mother.

Beckwith said Orange police officers told her that Grud initially had claimed he had legal custody of his children and gave officers a false address. Eventually, police said, Grud led officers to a Santa Ana apartment on South Lyon Street where his mother and the children were found. Scott and Barbara Grud were taken to County Jail, where they remained Tuesday night in lieu of $50,000 bail each.

Beckwith shared custody with Grud, who had been living in Wyoming when the children disappeared. She said Grud had the children for Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter, as well as every summer. At the end of August, 1985, when the children should have returned home for the new school year, they did not, Beckwith and Utah authorities said.

Beckwith said she believes Grud took the children to hurt her because she had sought the divorce. Barbara Grud apparently cared for the children while her son, now an unemployed construction worker, found scattered jobs. Utah investigators said they came close to finding the Gruds several times, but that they moved frequently.

It was unclear Tuesday what the children thought of their mother’s whereabouts. Officials at a private school in Las Vegas said the Grud children had claimed their mother was in a mental institution.

Early Monday, the Grud children were taken to Orangewood Children’s Home, the county’s emergency shelter for abused and abandoned children. A custody hearing is scheduled Thursday before an Orange County Juvenile Court judge, who could determine whether the children should be returned to their mother.

Cathy Holt, a sheriff’s deputy in Garfield County, Utah, who has worked on the missing children case since Aug. 19, 1985, feels confident Beckwith will get her kids back.

‘Cried Like a Baby’

“I cried like a baby when I found out they had them. I’m a 6-foot, 250-pound lady and I cried like a baby,” Holt said, sounding a little weepy Tuesday afternoon. “But this is a small town, and we care here.”

Since the summer Grud got his court-approved 3-month custodial visit and allegedly vanished with the children, Holt has pursued leads and lended a shoulder to Beckwith as several national organizations for missing children, not to mention private investigators, searched in vain for her children.

Beckwith, who remarried 8 years ago and has two younger children, is manager of a glass and paint shop in Panguitch Lake--a town of 1,500 about 24 miles from Bryce Canyon National Park.

There was delight throughout Panguitch Lake when news spread Monday of the arrests.

“We’re all ecstatic here,” Holt said.

The county’s “jeep patrol,” a sort of volunteer search and rescue team, arrived at her home before dawn and gave her the good news of her children. When Beckwith arrived at the county sheriff’s station, where there are nine employees including the sheriff, “there wasn’t a dry eye in the house,” she said.

“I got a long road ahead,” Beckwith said. “It’s going to be tough, but we will do it. We’ve been through a lot of obstacles and this (the wait for her children’s return) is nothing compared to what we’ve been through.”